"I didn't tell Brad. I convinced myself it wasn't that serious."
Rachel took a shaky breath, the words getting harder.
"Then one night when Brad was away at a game, Derek came to my apartment. Said he wanted to talk about Brad's career." Her hands gripped the podium. "But he didn't want to talk."
The word stuck in her throat. She'd spent a year calling it "the incident," refusing to name it.
"He assaulted me."
The crowd gasped. Several people covered their mouths. The room seemed to hold its breath.
Then Derek shot to his feet.
"That is a LIE—"
"Sit down, Dr. Matthews," Mayor Henderson said sharply.
Rachel's hands shook but she forced herself to continue. She had to finish.
"We were alone in my apartment. He was bigger than me, stronger, and I froze. I couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't fight back the way I had at the team event." Her voice cracked. "And when it was over, he told me if I said anything to Brad, he'd make sure everyone knew I'd invited it. That I'd been flirting with him for months. That I was cheating."
Tears streamed down her face.
"So I stayed silent. And Derek started telling Brad's teammates I was unstable. That I'd made advances toward him and he'd rejected me. That I was trying to sabotage Brad's career. Holding him back. Eventually, Brad believed it."
Her voice grew stronger despite the tears.
"Then at our engagement party, Brad ended it." Rachel looked at the crowd. "Everything Derek had whispered to him for months, Brad said out loud. And I was humiliated and destroyed."
She wiped her tears, her hands still shaking.
"I spent a year believing it was my fault. That maybe I had been too boring. That maybe Derek had been right about me." Her voice hardened.
Rachel looked directly at Derek.
"Then Derek showed up here two weeks ago. Smiled at me like we were old friends. Like nothing had happened." Her voice turned to steel. "He told me he'd 'evaluated' my relationship with Mac and found it lacking. That he'd done Brad a favor by breaking us up. That I should be grateful he'd saved Brad from making a mistake."
The crowd murmured angrily.
"Derek Matthews doesn't just destroy careers. He destroys people. He assaults women, manipulates, makes everyone believethe women are lying. Because he has credentials. And people like me are just... collateral damage."
Rachel's voice rang out clearly now.
"But I'm done being quiet." She held up her phone. "I filed a restraining order this morning. Officer Martinez has all the evidence."
Officer Martinez stood from the back of the room, his expression hard.
Rachel looked at Derek. Rachel's voice shook on the final words, but she didn't look away.
"You tried to destroy Ellie's career because she's better at her job than you are. You tried to destroy my relationship with Mac. But this time, people believe me."
She stepped back from the podium. The silence in the community center was suffocating. The air conditioner rattled on the wall, the only sound in the room.
Every eye turned to Matthews. They waited for the explosion. They waited for the man who had stalked and threatened them to lash out, to scream, to deny it with rage.
But Derek Matthews didn't scream.
He didn't even stand up immediately. He simply uncrossed his legs, smoothed the crease in his trousers, and stood with the languid grace of a man bored by a dull sermon. He looked at Rachel, then at Jamie, then scanned the angry faces of the crowd with a faint, pitying smile.
